The slow burn of hope
by Grim Lupine
Summary: Jim is familiar with abandonment. //oneshot// //KirkMcCoy//


Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.

Notes: I am so scared to get into this fandom because of how awesome-filled it is. I've had this written for forever, but I keep rereading it and hating it. It's been beta'd by the wonderful -TheSingingBlob- , who had to put up with me asking "is Jim too weepy? He's too weepy, isn't he?" Oh well. /: Maybe if I get it out of the way, I can move on to writing something more awesome. By which I mean porn, of course. :D

-

--

Jim is familiar with abandonment. It comes in the form of his mother, too busy working away her grief on other planets to come home to the son that only reminds her of what she's lost. It comes in the long lines of women and men that have never thought Jim was good enough—they have their predetermined expectations of what he should be like, and he can feel their disappointment crawling on his skin when he turns out to be something different. Jim has gotten pretty used to people leaving him; sometimes when he can see it coming he leaves first; he wants it to be on his own terms.

His world kind of shakes the day he meets Bones, though he doesn't know it at the time. Jim can be obnoxious, careless, grating; he knows that. Bones growls at him and smacks him on the head, but he comes to drag him out of bars at three in the morning, and he cleans the blood off him with impossibly tender hands, and Jim waits for the day when Bones will realize that he isn't worth it. It never comes. Bones stays with him through every dumb thing Jim can possibly do, helps him do even dumber things, and every time Jim wakes up with his head pounding and the taste of alcohol thick on his tongue to see Bones's scowling face, something warms cracks open in his chest. Slowly he starts to think that, maybe, at last, he's found someone who won't run when he defies expectations (maybe because Bones _has _no expectations for him, knows thoroughly exactly who he is).

But sometimes a lifetime of instinct takes over; one night Jim comes back to their room with a black eye and a gash high on his forehead, spilling blood in gruesome trails down the side of his face. Bones looks at him, jaw tight with anger, and starts yelling at him about how irresponsible he is, how he has no regard for his own well-being—Jim stops hearing the words after a moment, panic welling up in him like an unstoppable wave, and all he can think to do is turn and run, run before he sees that familiar weariness on Bones's face that means 'I'm tired of you.' Jim runs from the insidious fear he's carried all his life, that maybe he really _isn't_ good enough. That maybe that's why none of the people in his life can be bothered to stay with him.

Heartbeat thumping heavily in his ears, he doesn't realize Bones is following him until he feels a hand grab his shoulder and swing him around.

"_Jim_," Bones says, shaking him. "Stop. Stop running." Jim looks at him, gruff and angry on the surface, concern lurking in his eyes, and he blurts out, "I won't do it. I won't get into any more fights." The unvoiced _just don't leave me _is deafening. They are the words of a child coming from the man, words swallowed down and ignored too often, a festering wound that no one has taken the trouble to heal.

Bones' hand moves up to cup Jim's cheek. He looks tired, sad. He asks quietly, "Who fucked you up this badly, kid?" Jim swallows hard.

He wants to say _I don't know what you're talking about_, but what comes out is a hoarse, "Everyone." He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, tastes bile at the back of his throat.

There is so much raw, gaping need inside Jim that he has never shown anyone, for fear they'd turn away from its ugliness. Bones looks it dead on, burns it away with the heavy warmth of his hand on Jim's face, and the tenderness in his voice when he says, "I get pissed at you for fighting because I soak my hands in blood every day, and I'd really like to not have any of that blood be yours. But I'm not going to leave you, even if you're still a reckless idiot." He draws Jim in close, his words vibrating against the side of Jim's head. "I'm never going to leave you, kid. Get that through your head. Anyone who ever walked away from you before is too stupid to live, and I'd like to think I'm a pretty intelligent guy," Bones tells him, and if Jim's answering laugh sounds a bit ragged and wet, Bones has the decency to not mention it.

When Bones holds his face with gentle hands and leans in to kiss him, Jim feels the heat of his touch race through his body, searing away the doubts inside him, so that he maybe starts to believe Bones when he says quietly, "Never, Jim."

--

-


End file.
